


Grandma Knows Best (Sometimes)

by magnificentbanes



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Gen, Good Parent Maryse Lightwood, Kid Fic, but babies are hard y'all, maryse tries to be a good grandma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 17:17:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14117142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnificentbanes/pseuds/magnificentbanes
Summary: The last time Maryse had held a baby was when Max was young.or "The one where Maryse is left alone with Alec and Magnus's daughter and doesn't know what to do"





	Grandma Knows Best (Sometimes)

The last time Maryse had held a baby was when Max was young. But Max was thirteen now - almost a man, really. Once Max had grown up, there was never babies in the Institute because the only family that lived there was the Lightwoods. 

And, yet, here she was. Standing in the middle of the ops center, holding a tiny screaming baby with horns on her forehead. Holding her granddaughter.

When Alec had come to her almost five months ago and told her that he and Magnus were adopting a baby (that they would name Sophia Catarina), Maryse hadn’t known what to say. She had always wanted grandchildren, children who could carry on the Lightwood name and legacy.

But Sophia wasn’t a Lightwood, she wasn’t a Lightwood-Bane. Sophia wasn’t even a Shadowhunter, she was a warlock. But when Alec had brought Maryse the tiniest little bundle she had ever seen, she knew there was no way she couldn’t love that little girl, even if she wasn’t the grandchild Maryse had always envisioned.

And yet.

Maryse had never been alone with Sophia. Someone - Alec, Magnus, Isabelle, Magnus’s friend Catarina - was always there to take her from Maryse when she cried. Maryse didn’t know how to comfort her, and yet here she was, holding the screaming baby with no one to hand her off to.

It had been unexpected. Usually Sam, Luke’s partner’s wife, would watch her but she had come down with the nasty stomach bug that was making its way around New York. Magnus was in...some foreign country for a high warlock conference, which meant that Alec had no choice but to bring her to this Institute with him. Ever since they had brought Sophia into their lives. Alec didn’t go out on missions as much as he used to but today they were short staffed (again, thanks to the stomach bug) and Alec had had no choice but to hastily hand Sophia off to Maryse and rush off.

And Maryse didn’t know how to calm her down.

She had never been the best mother and she was still working on being able to admit that out loud. She just never really had that maternal instinct that mothers are supposed to get when their children were born. She fed them and changed their diapers and was able to get them to go to sleep when they needed to, but she had never really felt a loving connection to them. It wasn’t until just a few months ago when she’d told Luke this that she learned what postpartum depression was. It felt good to know that there was a name for what she felt, that she wasn’t just a terrible mom.

Maryse looked down at Sophia. She wondered if she could sense that Maryse was practically a stranger, that she wasn’t one of her dads or her aunts or any of the other people that she interacted with every day. She wondered if she was destined to be as bad a grandmother as she had been a mother.

She paced around Alec’s office, bouncing Sophia in her arms, giving her her pacifier and toys, anything to try and get her to calm down. But nothing was soothing her. So Maryse did something that she rarely did - she called Magnus.

“Hello?”

“Magnus, hi. It’s Maryse.”

“Well, this is unexpected. What can I do for you, Maryse?”

“It’s Sophia. Alec had to leave suddenly and I can’t get to her to stop crying. I’ve tried everything.” Her voice was high pitched and panicked, a vulnerability that she never expected to show to Magnus Bane, even if he was her son’s husband.

“Okay, Maryse, calm down. It’s not the end of the world. I’m gonna send you a link to a song. Put her on your shoulder and play the song and I guarantee that she’ll fall asleep.”

“Thank you,” Maryse breathed out, relieved.

“Family helps each other. And you’re my family.”

Maryse didn’t know how to respond to that, so she just settled for saying goodbye and hanging up. Minutes later, she got a text from Magnus with a link to a YouTube video. She rested Sophia against her shoulder and opened the link.

_ Come stop your crying it’ll be alright  
_ _ Just take my hand, hold it tight _

By the time the song ended, Sophia was snoring lightly against Maryse’s chest and Maryse smiled. She knew that she should probably put her in the bassinet that Alec had set up in the corner, it was probably more comfortable than the position she was in, but she just didn’t have it in her to put her down. So, they stayed like that, grandmother and granddaughter, in the silence of Alec’s office.

Maryse felt more at peace than she had in years.

An hour later, Alec returned, sweaty and covered in ichor, his bow slung over his shoulder. “Oh, wow,” he said, voice barely above a whisper, “you got her to go to sleep.”

“Don’t sound so surprised. I did raise three children after all.”

“No, I know. It’s just that usually Magnus is the only one who can get her to sleep.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You must be like a super grandma or something.”

“I had help from Magnus,” she admitted, not wanting to take credit for something she didn’t really do.

“Oh. Well, you’re still a super grandma. Here, let me take her,” he said, dropping his bow and holding at his arms.

“No way. You’re filthy. Go take a shower, we’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Now, go.”

When Alec left the room, Sophia started to stir. Maryse lifted her to eye level and Sophia smiled and reached for Maryse’s nose, laughing. “Hey there, pretty girl.” Sophia smiled again and Maryse thought that for the first time in her life, maybe she was doing something right.

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me on tumblr: alcgideonlightwood!


End file.
